Normal

Lately, I have been struck by several things that seemed "normal" to me that would have seemed "strange" three or four years ago. I'm at the point where life and work is in China and going to America means going on vacation. For example

• choosing to walk to or from a place that is a mile away because that's the easiest way to do it.
• ordering big, 6-7 gallon bottles of water to use for drinking and cooking. Growing up, my dad's office had a water tower and I thought it was the coolest thing. Little did I know that the majority of world can't drink water from the tap.
• eating eggplant and sweet potato on a regular basis because I love them. Sure, maybe some of that is maturing tastebuds, but I also feel like the American diet does not leave much room for either food (except at Thanksgiving)
• counting to ten using only one hand. here's a video to illustrate
• flying to another city. . .not that I do it every weekend, but if I need to visit Beijing to take care of passport stuff or spend three weeks there for master's. .meh, no big deal
• ordering pizza in Chinese--I actually hate ordering pizza over the phone in America. But, I love doing it in China. It's a language pattern that I have down pat :)

I suppose I could delve into other implications of extended living outside of my passport country, but for now, I'll just say that I enjoy living in China.